[ Odd Ball Lots on Island ]
Aren't those oddball partial fills irritating? I recommend that people never place a day order on Datek. With a day order you might, around 4 pm, get filled 7 shares on a 1,000 share order. Then you have 7 shares in hand and no open order.
Another minor irritation is that, in the example above, your order on Island is not treated as partially filled, but instead a new order is entered for 993 shares. This means that you go to the end of the line, if there are other orders at your limit.
As an example, I owned a few thousand of a thinly traded stock that appeared to be at a local maximum in price. I decided to try to sell 1,000 between the spread. My order sat on Island since there was little trading volume. After a while, someone else placed an order to sell 2,000 at my limit. My 1,000 was listed first on Island, which is fair. But then, I got a fill of 37 shares. A new order (for me) for 963 shares was entered automatically, and appeared on Island BEHIND the other person's 2,000. Since I thought the price was topping out, I wanted to sell quick but was now second in line. I thought about lowering my limit by 1/32, to get ahead of the other order. That would cost me roughly $30 for the price difference plus $10 for the new order commission. Instead, I BOUGHT 1 share at my current limit sell price. The other person must have been steamed to get a fill of 1 share. That put my order for 963 shares ahead of their order for 1,999 shares. I was glad I did that because I my next partial fill was for 700 shares, and then the price dropped out of range of the limit.
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